Tag: Rebecca Babb-Brott

Turkey Tracks: “XOXO” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  April 27, 2019

“XOXO” Quilt

I love this quilt.

The two blocks are from my online class with Tara Faughnan, hosted by Amy Newbold of Sewtopia, and made with solid Moda fabrics.  Each month Tara shares one of the blocks she has designed, teaches us with written materials and how-to videos, and chooses a color palate which Amy Newbold of Sewtopia, which hosts the class, sends to us.    These blocks—Color Pop and Color Cross—are from the first two months of the class.

I quilted with big stitches and used size 8 perle cotton.  The backing is one of the Japanese fabrics that Rebecca Babb-Brott carries in her Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.  I bought it for another quilt, but didn’t use it after all.  I Love how it works here.  I had a time choosing which color binding to use—I actually bought a warm navy and, then, a yellow, but finally settled on the “sage” color that is in the quilt.  It works with the front and the back, so I’m happy.

The circle block is 6 inches finished, and the cross block is 8 inches finished—so the math works to align them at 4 circles and 3 crosses.

I always try to take a picture which I can print out 4X6 size and which I can slip into a photo card.  I use these cards for pretty much all correspondence.

While I sew at night, next to me, someone keeps me company.

Turkey Tracks: The Color Collective: Circles!

Turkey Tracks:  January 7, 2019

The Color Collective:  Circles!

I am taking a 6-month online “class” with Tara Faughnan, from Sewtopia.  The project is called “The Color Collective.”

This class is more “trouble” found by fellow quilters Becca Babb-Brott and Tori Manzi, who are also taking the class. We all signed up for 6 months and will decide on more or not at that time.

Tara Faughnan is known for her use of color—and solids.  Take a look at her quilt gallery—she is amazing:  https://www.tarafaughnan.com/home

And Sewtopia has its own web site and Instagram site:  Sewtopia.com, I think.

One gets a new block design and method each month and a selection of fabrics with which to make that project—all chosen by Tara Faughnan.  I signed up for getting half yards rather than fat quarters, and I’m already glad I did that as I have other solid-fabric projects in the works.

January’s block is these circles—and extensive instructions and on-line videos help one be successful.  While waiting for my fabrics to come, I practiced by making this little quilt out of my solid stash.  I am now totally obsessed with making these circles.  I particularly like the secondary pattern where the blocks come together.  I’ll bind in a soft grey, which I got Saturday in Belfast at Fiddlehead Artisan Supply.  I found the perfect color in Size 8 perle cotton to hand qulit a grid on the little quilt above—a soft, rose/almost salmon.  I am so happy they are carrying some of this lighter weight perle cotton.  And I’m marking lines with a Hera marker, which is working beautifully.  I just mark one line at a time.

Here are the fabrics Tara/Sewtopia chose and sent.  I’ve washed and ironed them, cut into them, and am now making circles with them.  Pics to follow in a bit.  I am champing at the bit to do more today, but also have the Traveling quilt on the long arm, so have to make myself spend time there as well.  There is a deadline for the Traveling quilt as Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild is going to show our Traveling quilts to Coastal Quilters in February.

But, aren’t these colors luscious!

Here is the block for January or February—I’m not sure which month since I just started—and the fabrics are in the mail now.  It’s foundation pieced.  Will I get obsessed with this one too?  Hard to tell yet, but at the very least I’ll make 4 and put them into my “parts department” bin.  (See earlier posts on the “parts department” project some of us started a few years back.)  Both Becca and Linda Satkowski are putting together their improv quilts from their “parts department” bins as I write.  In essence, we three made blocks enough to give the other two what we were making—and we had such fun just playing with blocks.  Making Jen Kingwell’s “Long Time Gone” quilt helped us understand how to group blocks into an improv quilt of this kind.

 

PS:  The Traveling Quilt is OFF THE LONGARM.  Now to bind it.

Turkey Tracks: “Serendipity: Scrappy Surprise” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  January 5, 2019

Serendipity:  Scrappy Surprise Quilt

I had such fun making this quilt.  It was gifted to one of two sisters here in Camden, Maine.  The other sister’s quilt follows in a separate post.

Both Bonnie Hunter and Victoria Findlay Wolfe “play” with “making” fabric.  The center of this block is made from my crumb scraps—sewn on to 4 1/2-inch newsprint weight paper.  I worked in faces, animals, and fun images when I could.  These block centers were a leader/ender project for a long time.

I learned to make the other square from one of Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilts.  Celtic Soltice, maybe.  One uses the Companion Angle Ruler, but positions the top above the strip of fabric to get the wider cut of the square.   The small triangles were cut with the Easy Angle ruler.  (Bonnie Hunter has a combo ruler that combines the functions of these two rulers.) The rest of the block is my design.  And I particularly like the formation of the 9-patch between the block corners and the sashing.

Fellow Camden quilter Becca Babb-Brott (Etsy store Sew Me A Song) helped me pick out the sashing fabric—and this fabric, which I’ve had for 3 or more years now—was probably my first walk into “modern” fabrics and brighter colors.

I adore this backing.  It’s got a black cat, fanciful houses, but also chickens and hedgehogs and so forth.  It’s perfect for this quilt.

Turkey Tracks: This One’s Ready to Sew Together

Turkey Tracks:  October 27, 2018

This One’s Ready to Sew Together

This scrappy quilt is my own design.  I’ve been working on it for some time now.  I bought the sashing material from Becca Babb-Brott at least three or four years ago.  (Becca has the Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.)

The 4 1/2-inch block centers are “made” fabric from my smaller scraps.  Both Bonnie Hunter and Victoria Findlay Wolfe “make” fabric in this way.  Along the way I began adding in some novelty fabrics to sprinkle throughout the quilt.

I used the Companion Angle ruler to cut the flying geese—but in a novel way to get the top flat edge—which I learned from Bonnie Hunter while making one of her mystery quilts—the Italian-inspired one I think, Allietore.  I used the Easy Angle ruler for the flying geese small triangles.  And all pieces were cut from 2-inch strips.

 

I’ve got the cutest backing for this quilt, and I can’t wait to longarm quilt it.  That day is coming up fast now.  I’m not sure what I’ll use for binding yet.  I might use either the sashing or the backing fabric to bind.  The quilt has not told me what it wants yet.

 

Turkey Tracks: Me-Made-May

Turkey Tracks:  May 9, 2018

Me-Made-May

I am well on my way with garment making this year.

I probably can’t wear something I’ve made every day for the whole month of May yet, but I am not far off.  I can probably do it if I wear things multiple times.  I LOVE sewing clothing.

Looky, looky at new additions to my wardrobe:

Grainline Studio:  The Morris Blazer:  The coral knit is not very stretchy.  I’m still figuring out where I fit between a 12 and a 14, especially with tops.  And I’ve learned I do better with a 12 in a top if the knit is stretchy.  This garment fits, but only just.  So I wanted a sleeveless layering piece to go with.  I will make this adorable jacket again for the fall in a 14.

Grainline Studio:  Willow Tank top.  Pattern also extends to a dress.  I used double gauze and LOVE this top.  Will wear both pieces with either a jean or natural skirt.  Or, stretch jeans.  AND, I will be making this one again and again for this summer.  Overlaying it with a garment shirt would also be lovely.

100 Acts of Sewing Dress No. 3:

This is my second dress from this pattern.  This pattern is very…big.  Cheryl Rodriguez (my sewing teacher) and Becca Babb-Brott (see her Etsy store Sew Me A Song) have helped me to tighten it in the right places and to redraw the neckline and shorten the sleeves.  I just finished this one last night.  Our Maine spring runs cool to warm, so I can wear various types of white t-shirts beneath it.  Or throw on a pair of leggings.  The fabric is Essex Linen.

Here is a close-up of this gorgeous steel grey and cobalt blue fabric:

And you can see how pretty white sets off the fabric.  I will get a lot of summer wear out of this one for sure.  So pretty too with my Ka Ora silver bracelets–see earlier post.

I am cutting out accumulated fabrics now and will have a sewing marathon when I get home from my quilty retreat to the Franciscan Guest House for Mother’s Day weekend.

 

 

Turkey Tracks: Clue 5 and Quilty Play Time

Turkey Tracks:  December 28, 2017

Clue 5 and Quilty Play Time

I finished Clue 5 yesterday.

The pile of units is looking healthily large:

I will be interested to see how my colors will work in this mystery quilt, “On Ringo Lake,” by Bonnie Hunter.

Instead of working on the LAST THREE blocks of the big star quilt…based on my design from Amy Friend’s Improve workshop and her book IMPROV PAPER PIECING…

…I played.

I think it is really important to have play time with sewing.

And, like many quilters, I have the ongoing battle of using scraps so as not to waste too much fabric.  Plus, I like scrappy looks in a quilt.

I pulled out some old blocks–because I wanted to see how the very modern fabric I chose for their sashing would actually work with these blocks.  The blocks are a riff on Bonnie Hunter’s “Nine in the Middle,” from her ADVENTURES WITH LEADERS AND ENDERS.  Instead of the 9-patch middle, I am using “made fabric.”  The sashing fabric came from Rebecca Babb-Brott’s Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.

I like it.  I like, too, the neutral block.  I have A LOT of neutral scraps, so will kind of dot those around this quilt like polka dots.  I will use colored squares on most of the neutral centers.  The all-neutral one is a bit stark.

We learned in one of Bonnie’s mysteries, to use the Companion Angle ruler to cut the big triangle in the outer block.  With a 2-inch strip, one can line up on the 4-inch line so as to get the top of the triangle cropped off.  This technique would combine with the Easy Angle ruler for the outer triangles.  No waste that way.  You could also use the new corner cutting ruler and lay a 2-inch square over a rectangle and cut.  More waste, though.  And, of course, Bonnie always shows how to draw a line on a small square, lay it over the rectangle, and sew a scant seam.  So many ways to make a unit.

Friend Linda Satkowski is making these “made” fabric blocks by using the same colors, like all the reds, all the blues.  I think that’s very interesting too.

Right now I have TWO leader ender projects:  The above and this one:

Garlic Knots, from Bonnie’s QUILTMAKER magazine column:

I THINK Bonnie made this quilt, and I suspect it is in her upcoming new book.  Here’s a picture. If anyone knows where this quilt appeared, let me know so I can credit it??

I think I would NOT do a border…???  I seem to be in a borderless moment.

Finally, I played around with Amanda Jean Nyberg’s idea of making birch tree trunks from scraps.  She made a small block, starting with a 5-inch square and making thin tree trunks–for a pincushion.  I started with a 7 1/2-inch block and used 1-inch trunk columns.  It so does not work:  the block-size math isn’t right, it isn’t square, and I don’t like how the trunks lean.  Will continue to play around with this one though.  Clearly the beginning block size needs to be much bigger.  Meanwhile I’ll throw this block into the Parts Department box and will probably frame it somehow to make the math work with other blocks.

I had a fun afternoon and emerged relaxed and ready to enjoy dinner and, later, to watch tv and sew “Valse Brilliante” English Paper Piecing blocks (Willyene Hammerstein, MILLEFIORE QUILTS).  I have quite a lot of those blocks now, but that is a story for another day.

Turkey Tracks: “Maine Milky Way” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  May 16, 2017

“Maine Milky Way” Quilt

I made this handsome quilt for my grandson for his 12th birthday.  (The kiddos are all growing up way too fast.)

This is Bonnie Hunter’s Narragansett Blues, which can be found in MORE ADVENTURES IN LEADERS AND ENDERS.

Remember a few years back when I spent the summer emptying the 2-inch square bin by making 4-patch blocks?  This is the FIFTH quilt made from those blocks.  And I still have more.  The big rectangles come straight from the blue 3 1/2-inch strip bin and from the 3 1/2 block bin.  So this quilt has been made with no fabric purchases but the binding and backing.

I quilted with a marine blue Signature thread that blends right into the fabric–and used a pantograph called “Scrumptous” by Lorien Quilting.

Turkey Tracks: Amy Friend Workshop

Turkey Tracks:  April 13, 2017

Amy Friend Workshop

You probably think I have deserted you since I have not posted recently.

But, I have been having Quilty Fun.

Amy Friend was just here for a workshop on Improv Paper Piecing.

Our brains are still spinning.  Mine is, anyway.

Here is Amy’s exciting new book.  She is such a good teacher.

We learned all about how to create our own improv blocks and all of us walked away with fresh design ideas that we are now making into quilts.  Our monthly all-day Sit and Sew at the Camden Lion’s Club was buzzing with Amy Friend projects in process.

First, Amy did a trunk show of quilts from the book–and some extras as well.  She used these quilts to illustrate the ideas in the book AND to show us what makes an improv, modern quilt.

So, I’m going to share those quilts with you.

The quilts are being held up by President Lynn Vermeulen and VP/Program Organizer Becca Babb Brott.  (Remember Becca has an Etsy store, Sew Me A Song, where you can find some really interesting modern fabrics, including the harder-to-find Japanese fabrics by Japanese designers.)

Note the jagged triangles–very modern.  This is an early Amy Friend quilt that is NOT in the book.  Amy used it to talk about destabilizing a traditional block, among other ideas.

I love this one–of course I do.  I’m a scrappy quilter.  These fabrics are all Cotton+Steel.  This one is a great scrap buster.

Funky stars done in a very modern black/white/green combo.

Simple is sometimes best.  That’s Amy on the left.  Here she talked about the use of negative space, an “open” block, and her color combos.

A modern hour glass.

Note that the dark blue does NOT evenly meet up with the light blue.

I LOVE this one:

Stained glass and the use of negative space with interesting quilting.

Architecture…

Modern objects–a road sign repeated.

Love this one too.

Mirror images.

These next quilts are not in the book, but were made along the way as Amy refined/defined what she wanted to share in the book.

My goodness!  I love this quilt.

And this one, seen some time ago now, probably from Amy’s blog, likely sparked my own design for the workshop.  It seemed like stained glass.

This one, “Twinkle,” is in a book named SCRAPS, INC. Vol. 1, compiled by Susanne Woods.  It generated one of my designs from the workshop (a separate blog post on those).  This quilt is probably my all-time Amy Friend favorites.  I think because it is scrappy.  I think I will make it one of these days.

Amy has her FIRST fabric line coming out any minute now.  She has designed “blenders” as she really likes to work with solid fabrics in her quilts.

Amy’s blog is http://www.duringquiettime.com.

So, more on my designs and plans next post.

 

Turkey Tracks: Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Blocks

Turkey Tracks:  February 4, 2017

Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Blocks

Some Coastal Quilters have issued a new challenge for 2017 to members:  to make Tula Pink’s “City Sampler” from her book 100 Modern Blocks.

(We are sewing our Farmer’s Wife blocks into tops now.)

 

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Again, we will do about 9 blocks a month, ending in December.

These blocks are all about the fabric and, unlike the Farmer’s Wife blocks, are pretty easy.  Indeed, they are FUN!

I am going to use Cotton + Steel in all of my blocks, but will allow myself some digressions with other designers mixed in, like some of the Japanese fabrics I like, some Carolyn Friedlander, and some solids, including shot cotton.

Here my first 9 blocks:

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As with the Farmer’s Wife blocks, adding solids can work to sharpen other fabrics–which I did not do unfortunately.  The top left block needed some solids as the fabrics are too jumbled together.  What can be pretty when looking at big pieces of fabrics can…not be…when pieces are small.  You would think I would have learned that lesson after all the Farmer’s Wife blocks.  But, no…

The bottom right “jacks” block also needed more definition.  The aqua is too busy.

Having said that, as with the Farmer’s Wife blocks, they all look pretty when they get into a quilt top.

The main thing is to have some fun with each block and not to stress about perfection.  Some work better than others.

This collection came in the mail today, from Craftsy:  Cotton + Steel “basics.”  They should help with the basics problem.  If you haven’t discovered Craftsy fabrics yet, take a look.  Also, I like the Etsy store, Stash Builders for specific colorways, etc.  And, of course, I continue to love Becca Babb-Brott’s Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.

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I got my first low-volume monthly shipment from Pink Castle fabrics, and it was beautiful.  I treated myself some time around Christmas.  I have since changed this fabric club to Cotton + Steel, but I really loved the first low-volume shipment from them.  Hmmmm…  I continue to be enchanted with low-volume fabrics.

I hope readers are having a good quilty winter.  I know I am.

 

Turkey Tracks: Sew Sweetness Aeroplane Bag

Turkey Tracks:  January 21, 2017

Sew Sweetness “Aeroplane” Bag

I love this bag!!

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The top is pieced in the “Becca Babb-Brott” style.  Becca helped me a lot as this bag was a huge learning curve for me.  I love, also, the way the charcoal shot cotton fabric looks for the bottom and the straps.

I had to put the top zipper in THREE TIMES before I got it right.  Oh my!!  Don’t even ask…why…  Dense seamstress who has not put in zippers in probably 30 years or more.  AND what I think is a kind of misdirection about how to handle the ends of the zippers in the pattern.  Probably everyone else who sews in the world “got” what to do or not do according to the type of zipper one had, but not me…

I also learned with this top zipper that one has to sew a generous quarter of an inch on the first basting in of the zipper or the inner lining will not come up far enough to be caught when one does the final top stitching.

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BUT, I loved the way the inside zippers and red pockets came out.  Those I mastered right away.

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Can’t wait to use this bag AND I can’t wait to make another one.

The pattern comes in two sizes; I did the LONG bag.